Air Force Called In For Gulf Oil Spill: Obama

President Obama gave a White House address Friday, regarding the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, following failed attempts to slow the flow of oil Thursday night. He gave the D.O.D. the go ahead to prepare the U.S. Air Force for participating in the oil spill cleanup. Concerns are increasing that the gallons of oil being spilled, already reaching into the millions, will lead to an environmental disaster on par with the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill of 1989.

Cleanup efforts increased after the oil from the spill reached the Louisiana coast late Thursday night.

“BP is ultimately responsible under the law for paying the costs of response and clean up operations but we are fully prepared to meet our responsibilities to any and all affected communities… There are now five staging areas to protect sensitive shore lines. Approximately 1,900 federal response personal are in the area and more than 300 response vessels and aircraft on the scene twenty four seven,” said Obama in a White House address.

“We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that,” BP CEO Tony Hayward told Reuters.

BP has been working with the U.S. Coast Guard along with Louisiana government officials to get a handle on the oil spill. There has been no word on the cause of the fire that led to the oil rig sinking, followed by the now week-long oil spill.

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The Defense Department has been given the go ahead to deploy two C-130 Cargo planes to dump chemicals that will help to separate the thickness of the oil spill. The chemical should make it easier for workers to locate the source of the oil spill and stop. Government officials are debating how much involvement there should be from the military, but at the current rate the oil spill will soon to be affecting neighboring states such as Mississippi and Louisiana making it a federal concern, reported CBS.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf Coast is said to have reached into the millions. More than 200,000 barrels of oil are estimated to be flowing into the ocean on a daily basis.

The Transocean oil rig that sunk leading to the oil spill is still under water along with 11 missing workers that are assumed to be dead.

A request is underway for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct aerial flights to look for oiled wildlife for recovery and treatment. A contract has been established between BP and wildlife rehabilitation experts to treat wildlife that has been contaminated.